Ben Rosenfield

Rosenfield in 2014, photo by Prphotos.com

Birth Name: Benjamin A. Rosenfield

Place of Birth: Montclair, New Jersey, U.S.

Date of Birth: August 1, 1992

Ethnicity:
*father – Ashkenazi Jewish
*mother – English, Scottish, German, Danish, Irish [possibly converted to Judaism]

Ben Rosenfield is an American actor and musician. His roles include the films Greetings from Tim Buckley, Teenage, Jamesy Boy, Song One, Affluenza, A Most Violent Year, 6 Years, Indignation (2016), Person to Person, Mickey and the Bear, and Mark, Mary & Some Other People, and television’s Boardwalk Empire, Twin Peaks, The Family, and Mrs. America. He has also been credited as Benjamin Rosenfield.

He is the son of Kate Redway, an actress, and Stephen Rosenfield, a comedy teacher, who founded the American Comedy Institute, a comedy school. Ben is a maternal great-grandson of Danish diplomat Henrik De Kauffmann. Ben’s father is of Romanian Jewish, Polish Jewish, and Ukrainian Jewish descent. Ben’s mother has English, Scottish, German, Danish, and Irish ancestry. It is possible that Ben’s mother converted to Judaism.

Ben was raised Jewish and had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony. He has said that, as a child, he “connected deeply to [his] Jewish ancestry, and practiced the religion faithfully.”

Ben’s paternal grandfather was Abraham Rosenfield (the son of Isaac Rosenfield and Gertrude Braunstein). Abraham was born in Montréal, Québec, Canada, to Romanian Jewish parents. He was a labour organizer. Isaac was born in Iasi, Iasi. Gertrude was born in Bancesti, Vaslui, the daughter of Wolf Braunstein and Jennie Shoilovitch.

Ben’s paternal grandmother was Edith Tilkin (the daughter of Itsak Tilkin and Sonya Applebaum). Edith was a Jewish emigrant, from Poloski, Lubelskie, Poland, or Neppapatrov, Ukraine. She was also a labour organizer. Ben’s paternal grandparents co-founded a temple in Larchmont, New York.

Ben’s maternal grandfather was Albert James Redway III (tbe son of Albert James Redway, Jr. and Edith Wright Parker). Ben’s grandfather Albert was born in Massachusetts. Ben’s great-grandfather Albert was the son of Albert James Redway and Lulu Maud/Maude Hipp. Edith was the daughter of Chauncey Goodrich Parker and Dora Mason Wright.

Ben’s maternal grandmother was Tilda/Zilla Mathilde de Kauffmann (the daughter of Henrik Louis Hans von Kauffmann and Charlotte Stone MacDougall). Tilda was born in Beijing, China. Henrik was born in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse-Nassau, Germany, and had German and Danish ancestry, the son of Aage Basse Gustav von Kauffmann and Mathilde Berta Luise von Bernus; Ben’s great-grandfather Henrik De Kauffmann served as the Danish Ambassador to the United States during World War II. Ben’s great-grandmother Charlotte was American, the daughter of Admiral William Dugald MacDougall and Charlotte Sackett/Buttrick Stone. Charlotte had Scottish and English ancestry.

Each of Ben’s grandparents was born in a different country, something that is fairly rare. Actors Remy Auberjonois, Hart Bochner, Raymond Cham, Jr., Noah Emmerich, Lily James, Stephen Lang, Jessica Lange, Logan Lerman, Robert Morley, Brett Pierce, Andy Samberg, and Wallace Shawn, filmmaker John G. Avildsen, musicians Tom Cochrane, Paula Cole, Alex Pall, and Jeff Stinco, politicians Nick Clegg and Ricardo Maduro, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, are others whose grandparents were born in four individual countries.

Sources: Obituary of Ben’s paternal grandfather, Abraham Rosenfield – https://jhsnj-archives.org

Genealogies of Ben’s paternal great-great-grandparents, Wolf Braunstein and Jennie Shoilovitch – https://www.geni.com

Obituary of Ben’s paternal grandmother, Edith (Tilkin) Rosenfield – https://www.newspapers.com

Genealogy of Ben’s maternal grandfather, Albert James Redway III – http://www.gunstonhall.org

Ben’s maternal grandfather, Albert James Redway III, on the 1930 U.S. Census – https://www.familysearch.org

Obituary of Ben’s maternal grandfather, Albert James Redway III – https://www.washingtonpost.com

Genealogy of Ben’s maternal grandmother, Tilda/Zilla Mathilde de Kauffmann – http://noblecircles.com

Obituary of Ben’s maternal grandmother, Tilda/Zilla Mathilde (de Kauffmann) Redway – http://www.legacy.com